OUT OF THE RED ↝ dave grohl

one-hundred-four.

MARCH, 1997, LOS ANGELES, CA

IT WAS AMAZING what rockstars could do, how much they could manage, in such a short span of time. Reagan considered that idea, not even in regards to the whopping touring and recording schedules of rockstars, but more so along the lines of the changes that Dave had helmed over the course of several months.

She walked slowly through their new living room, their new living room in their new house in Los Angeles of all places. She kept her arms soldered across her chest, almost afraid to touch anything. If she left her mark on any of the furniture, then the place would really become home. It would be real.

Reagan wasn't ready for it to be real. She would have never admitted that to Dave, but in the privacy of her mind, she was pacing herself. Since she'd first relented in their moving-to-California debate in December, Dave had sprung into action.

In the midst of recording a new album for the Foo Fighters, he'd somehow found them a house in the Valley, arranged for Reagan to start working at Geffen's headquarters in Santa Monica, and moved her and Gracie there with such speed that it'd been breathtaking. Their Seattle home was gone, left to the reserve of their memories, and Reagan's little office at DGC had been reduced to an empty shell.

There had not even been time for anyone in Reagan's life to protest. It was a blur, recalling how distraught Kate and Chris had been when she'd confessed that alongside Dave, she was moving. She barely even remembered telling Kimberly and Richard, having switched herself onto autopilot for the ordeal, but she could summon a vague recall of Kimberly's melodramatic hysteria over being separated from her granddaughter.

Richard had, of course, been as supportive as he usually was, though their last interaction before Reagan had packed up for L.A. was fuzzy. She was sure that her father had wished her luck, but in her eyes, there was nothing lucky about where she was going.

The sacrifice she'd made was becoming more and more poignant. Reagan had slowly realized that the small knot of people she'd relied on to carry her through Dave's absences on tour were miles away now, only able to be reached by phone call. She and Gracie would be alone in this big, new house, with its high ceilings and many windows that looked out to an unfamiliar landscape.

She felt like a goldfish in a bowl. No matter where she turned, she was bumping into glass, trapped to face her own demise while everyone else looked on.

The idea of a country house in Virginia with a sprawling front yard and swaying pine trees had never seemed as far away as it did now, racing in the opposite direction of the tunnel that was Reagan's life.

Whatever world she'd lived in in Washington was in the past, shelved deep within in it. The idea of who she'd been even seemed murky. The girl who'd once stared back at her in the mirror, wearing a Wilson's Auto Shop vest and refusing to trim her bangs, was a distant memory. That girl would have never willingly picked up her life and dumped it in the city of Los Angeles.

Reagan took a deep breath. Remember the reason why, she commanded herself.

Dave. She wanted to be with Dave and she certainly wanted Gracie to be with her father.

Some time in January of that year, Dave had timidly asked Reagan if he ought to have gotten his own place in Los Angeles. She could have stayed in Seattle, he said, with Gracie and everything else she'd ever known. His line of work was inevitably directing him towards the Golden State. If Reagan wanted to keep the house in Washington, seeing him only when he could manage to travel back up to her and Gracie, he'd understand.